Distract yourself back to Calmness

Distraction is an effective way to deal with times you feel totally stressed out. Instead of focusing on the discomfort pulsing through you, do something, anything. The emotion intensity will lower as you move your attention away.

ACCEPTS is a group of skills to help you tolerate a negative emotion until you are able to address it and eventually resolve the situation (Lineham, 1993).

Think of a time you experienced an uncomfortable level of distress. It could be waiting for a test result, responding to your child’s demands or making a difficult phone call.

ACCEPTS stands for Activities, Contributing, Comparisons, Emotions, Push away, Thoughts, and Sensation.

Step away and work on lowering your stress response.

Activities is anything you can do – walk, check your phone, meet a friend, clean a room

Contributing is about helping someone out, send a kind message and feel the rush of dopamine released when you are helping others.

Comparison is about comparing to a time that you felt much worse or to others suffering such as from homelessness and poverty.

Emotion is switching to the opposite feeling through watching a funny video or listening to upbeat music.

Pushing away the situation by putting it aside in your mind and saying you’ll come back to it later.  

Thoughts channelled into different thinking such as counting or a puzzle involving a mental focus.

Sensation change by going outside, eat something pleasant or have a shower to move attention away from uncomfortable body sensation.

It’s your turn. Notice when you need to be distracted and what you can do to distract.